Asia Society presents; 16

The Asia Society prison. This is a series of interviews with experts on Asian affairs designed to strengthen our understanding of Asian people and by ideas. Your most on this transcribed series is the noted author on the ward winning broadcaster Lee Graham. Here now is Mrs. Graham. I think that of all the countries in the Asian part of the world that most of us would like to visit India is certainly among them. And I think perhaps Japan is the other end of like Thailand. India has not only seen vast but mysterious to many of us. And so whenever we can have a guest on this series who comes from India I think it is something very beneficial to all of us and we do indeed today have Dr. Khan name Bach as our guest Dr. Nim Bach is associate professor of sociology and coordinator of Social Sciences at Downing College. That's an island and you might remember the Delphi college also lectures at the New School here in New York City. And he is working on a book

called sociology of War and Peace which will perhaps come out in a year or in a long way from New York that is about 300 miles from Bombay. You had a brilliant education and taking it here and traveling to do it. Would you say you are an exception. Among all the boys of your age that is who come so far. Did many people in where you were born achieve any of this. Not really. In that way numerically it is an exception that most people have some attachment with land. They have a little mobility to go around her general mobility or vertical mobility. So I was one of the very people who had a chance or a drive to leave the town to get education in the cities which required so much water can also involve many contract contracts. OB

social nature. Maddow and other kinds. But I kind of. Lately I'm thinking that when you do something and you lose well it takes more humility than filling up self congratulation kind of them if there is more you know so much more is to be known so I'll In that sense I don't call myself exceptional at all. But I think it's exceptional when someone comes from a country as far away as India. I managed to travel is why did you have. Most people I think tend to stay in their own countries and then do have such a fine career in the United States. I think the point I was getting at is do many young men in India have the chance for a higher education. Would you seem to create for yourself. Yes that is a coincidence. Doing last twenty five years doing about twenty two years. The people wanting to change their social status explore economic

opportunities. And this being blessed and financed by the new government system. In other words if I were born 30 years ago maybe I would have the kind of chances like many of my colleagues Dan would have either. It does happen coincident to India as getting independent The first thing the Indian government data is provide many scholarships incentives. Because people and their qualification was one of internet not what I had a choice I just happened to belong to their category of class which was quite low in socio economic sense very underdeveloped. So that's what I had always a choice whether to be helped on that gown or on Mad ground I always chose the latter. So it was that in that sense on the basis of merit but this is beginning to happen many young people

either because the ambitious or because they have no inducement to leave their local habitat and seek other avenues for their expression of themselves. You say that more people students would be students are helped then on the basis of merit than on let's say a lack of financial advantage. It's a combination. It started out as more help given to the underdeveloped or lower what they call backward classes. But then there was a limit to what extent they the advantages of being disadvantaged. And I like the same thing here that the Negro students wanting to be treated separately and they the controversy to what extent do we have a double standard in favor of the disadvantaged people. So during last five years they have been leaning toward giving on the ways of merit rather than just disadvantages.

But when you talk about customs in India and we know that the caste system is prevailed for many years for centuries based on probably what seemed like a good idea at the time. But one which has been very destructive to many talented people. If you live say 50 years ago it would have harmed you considerably. That's correct isn't it. At that time I might not have developed a comparative perspective of and asking the question Am I being harmed another when you have no inclination to make choices and cannot make choices. Then you are frustrated. But if you don't want to make choices by being socialised in a closed system then the self. Guilt feeling of being harmed might not have taken place. No you're not aware of it so you are not cognizant of it therefore it doesn't seem to hurt you. Would you say that the classes which don't have as much opportunity in advantages other classes in India are still as

large in number. Are there still as many people who must slowly rise and slowly accomplish what they want. That that's a very good question and I think that it requires a brief explanation posts long time. There was a correlation between being socially lower class economically poor and politically powerless. It was almost like a regular correlation. Now doing last 25 years or so this correlation has been very much messed up. You may be socially backward but economically well-to-do you may it may be economically well-to-do were politically powerless or vice versa. So this kind of creates much more irregular situation because when you happen to belong to a lower caste. Then the competition is not completely closed. In other words if the competition for. Getting the highest political post or economic

gains are not close and then just meant poor Getting there are there. There's gotta be some irregularity. And this is the U.S. every day that poor people high caste and rich people from lower caste. This is fairly new and it creates a lot of problem for the people who are used to seeing in terms of regular correlations. Yes so the class system has been disrupted greatly and it's a sign I think of the dynamism which is growing in India. But it's a painful period right. It's much more complex now. It's not destroyed. It's still there but it's much more modified now rather than solving the ritualistic religious purposes that economic political purposes something like a trade union or a political pressure group which are the new functions performed by the old caste system. But is this a change which is taking place and opportunities and caste and economic background. Is this change breaking down other

customs such is it affecting religion. Is it affecting marriage. Is the change sweeping over everything in India. Yes yes and no. Some of the things like. Transportation system or channels of communication. When you introduce these things to an underdeveloped society or a developing side rather than one thinks that this will break the barriers of caste this will break the way of tradition but it's more complex than that. Often time this seemingly seemingly instruments for social change turned out to be strengthening the traditional Bonds saw rather than marrying within your own caste. One would think that they will start having much more open courtship or they will be with the people belonging to other classes of the town. What happens is there's simply spread horizontally so they use the modern type

or in system to seek or to jointly within their own caste within their own religion. So both are really just bonded and the cats born are not necessarily broken by the social chains which one would think it would happen. So there's a broadening but still within one own background that's why the media is almost the same. Still isn't there more intermarriage among people of different castes. More than it used to be it was one generally speaking. Yeah there was a time when it just couldn't be that side so it's more it's more. Allowed more color there there is no legal barrier but it much less than what it could happen considering all the exposure you have with different people. So you expose rather than just being able to choose from what you are exposed to. Is this partly due to the fact that one doesn't move out of his caste too much when he marries you to the fact that parents do arranged marriages largely in India. That's right and there are many vested interest on the part of the young people also not to resist that.

That thing is a lot of dirty work done on their behalf by the people there on how to participate in the rat race of choosing their own bride and bridegroom. More security offering. And so because of all this vested interest on the part of the young people and old people even though legally and technically in open court if system is possible they still hang on to the traditional system. When you say the vested interests of younger people make them give in to the arrangements on the part of one of these vested interests the fact that they don't have to bother to see marrying within your own caste if you happen to be let's say highly educated. Having some power then you know what bargaining power this bargaining power is lost when you start fooling around with the traditional system. That means you have dowdy intangible sense money. It used to be in kind but now it's in cash or oftentimes they ask for

expensive equipment like radio and television and so on as a present for getting mad at this. This whole idea about being scabs and therefore being able to order by going is applicable only if you compromise with the system. And so what happened that potentially evolutionary potentially changing young people succumb to this tradition when it pays so and they feel that their parents are in a better position to do the negotiating. Their marriage is based on love. All those are very popular. Or is it still more a matter of. Well I put it this way. Good business good family unions I don't know where is it anyway. Well on the basis of love you don't know about the existing Well there's no way I could tell I was that marrying for love and I think I endorse it personally but in India Love is just a bit different definition of love and ends.

System love was something to be discovered when you institutionalize a relationship rather than to make it up or react with it. But adolescence here in America and there is a myth that people fall in love and then get mad when the reality is not what happens here. That rather than a spontaneous feelings of love and. Like with the shaft and breaking your heart and then you fall in love and then get made what happened. Not many non spontaneous technical league or pretty narrowly construed barriers that young men and women my store and see as they go through so many times so many step that they then they get so tired that turn around and say Gee I must be in love and I love it's supposed to be a pragma turns out to be something super imposed one in the society which are known to be open anywhere. So I'm on the other hand society like India and Japan where theoretically the relationships are close within the closed that there is tremendous interplay. So that's the paradox the seemingly open sourced system like America has a lot

up close to restrictions and the seemingly closed system like India a lot of open plots ability within itself. It's because people demand that within the rules and I suppose create it. I just wondered whether an Indian young man and woman married on the basis of a spontaneous maybe not love because love takes I think used to deepen and develop but who do they marry because they're very attracted to her. Yes. Must they marry Stan you know that yeah there is a considerable gap between wanting to do it and not being able to do that either. Like I said before you compromise with the tradition or with the self-interest or you are simply too tired to do other things such as getting ahead in education and so by the time you are able or willing to do social experiment you are simply too tired. Many people won't do that but there are more inducements for falling in love or

changing the social system now than ever before so that may gradually develop and who knows whether that's a good or bad idea well because the divorce rate in countries where people go for love is extremely high. That's right it's a price we pay. Whenever there is an openness of any system that also involves conflicts and tensions and many many mistakes the first time I saw a lawyer was. Specializing in marriage counseling and it was very new in Bombay last time I was there last year. And I kind of got curious to do her business and I thought the joint family system they'll be unemployed and now this man said Yes. Now this problems are emerging with the development of the open system other than the little more openings ever crossed caste cause class barrier is being cracked. Then there are also more unanticipated kind of tension developing side by side with less inhibition in general or so more freedom to express what is troubling people.

If we go to the second part of our topic India looks at the West. Is that one of the things that India or let's say you wish to represent India at the moment. See about the West that although we seem to have an open society we nevertheless have many barriers within it which cause trouble. What are some of these barriers as you see them. Well yes well like I said before that which stands between individual desire to express himself or fulfill his potentialities. And what he actually can do that in the economic sense or in post mills and in the stands of creativity. In other words here and in this open system any or America or any other industrial violence politically Democratic quotation lot of society. We create so many ambitions so many temptations for people to

be successful in so many things Hamilton is Lee. But the way the structures are developed they the lottery system only in the many came in few were chosen so it keeps many people on the waiting list. It creates a tremendous amount of pensions on an individual level and also on social level. So when you see this industrial openness and social openness you also see barriers between between colors. The whole contradiction between the article openness and actual closeness when it comes to classes the purity co equality and actual race conflicts and inequality of advantages when it comes to the Negro Americans put instance did you know this is the kind of contradiction between theory and practice that a lot of MPs and depresses some object and the observer as I believe really I think that perhaps is the main barrier this racial one which.

Is breaking down somewhat but still much too strong. It shouldn't be at all not even use the word much too strongly shouldn't exist. However how about the barriers which exist among people who don't have the racial barriers. What other barriers do you see for them. Well that's settled one third class life within the system of open social mobility that a lot of a lot of the impurity complexes on the part of the people who are either not very age or who haven't been successful in their career will feel Ellie and their dad and be organized for doing a routine jobs lots of women which a secretary or a man who are not in the high positions the regular people that I go or people might be much more comfortable much more well-to-do than their counterparts in other countries. But in spite of the comfortable as and the luxuries of life like hotel was and

cars and so on that they just had so deprivation by comparison because other people have much more control over the situation and this is the battle between what one expects and live and want to get. So mere comfort or luxury not answers the human needs. Will this American Dream with which many people are imbued can lead you there. As you say complete is contentment. Or it can through superhuman effort perhaps lead to enormous success but even very successful people are always worrying about the next book let's say they don't know right or the next business deal they're going to make they take no pleasure in the woman they just completed you think where there is a strong caste system a man is born he knows where he belongs he stays there and he is not as unhappy if it is close. Yes but what's to happen now is that the closed system in spite of its advantage is being cracked cracked up anywhere. I mean they are borrowing troubles in a sense although it might be

for the higher advantage of being open. It's just a sub it's a fair deal I think when it takes maturity it will be when I had a life of contradiction. On the other hand the advanced industrial society like like this. Which promises to be the world leader which is quiet I think. Limit your ambition on the part of the maker to be the world leader because there are so many internal problems problems of late the problems of social inequality and the problems of war that he had in the society which can solve so many problems by channeling its material manpower and intellectual resources to build genuine peaceful relations. And when you see many of these resources being used in developing conflicts and expanding conflict then one feels that there is a gap between what society can do and what is actually happening. I'm afraid that gap has always been you'd like to think it was narrowing but maybe it's widening. You would know more about that because this is your field of sociology in the study of how

people behave in groups. A final question Dr. Nimba. What about the United States. Would you assume that you like would you like to see brought to India. Is there something about the United States which you think would never be beneficial in your own country. Well this is a very hard question of what one can one nation or one society can give to the nation. I think now the time has come that rather than one giving or taking. Inseparable mutual give then takes. I think American society with all its a liability than an asset a lot to learn and pitch to other nations. But since you ask me what what is the one element I could pick out say this open as we were reporting to inspired the problems. That's why you no longer there is openness among the young people and the people who are in schools in communication system like yours then there that little hope of learning and the thinking you and many of the things we are confronted with might be unthinkable for a long

time. But with an open society even if they would open it's doing quotes there is the implication in the promise that there is development equality of opportunity openness maintained with. You military to change society the wrong and I think this kind of humility is required on the part of the society which is advised to be able to say we are wrong. We can restructure our system whether it's economic system or social system or a war system. Well Dr. Hamburg I very much appreciate this conversation with you you have great insight and a wisdom which has nothing to do with age because you're quite young. It's a wisdom which was which I think you must have been born. And Dr. Nimba is associate professor of sociology at Dowling college. He lectures at the New School for Social Research in New York and is working on a book or sociology of War and Peace which will be published in a year or two. And

this is Lee Graham saying goodbye and asking you to remember that although East is East and West is West I think all of us agree that the time has come for the twain to me. That concludes tonight's edition of the Asia Society presents with Lee Graham. Listener ease comes to you through the cooperation of the Asia Society. If you would like to comment on tonight's program or would like further information about the society and how you can participate in its many interesting activities please write to Mrs. Graham at WNYC New York City 100 0 7. I make a note to join us again next week at this time for another edition of the Asia Society presents. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.